"The handbook, produced by the American Psychiatric Association (APA), lists symptoms for all known conditions and aims to steer psychiatrists, doctors and others towards a correct diagnosis. But in a field that struggles to connect people's inner experiences to measurable changes in their brains and bodies, the DSM is a lightning rod for criticism. It does not delve into the possible causes of mental illness, for example, or acknowledge that sociocultural and environmental factors could be important."
"Last week, the APA responded to that criticism by publishing a series of articles in The American Journal of Psychiatry, describing the strategy for the future of the DSM. It remains unclear when a new version will supersede the current DSM-5, released in 2013. "We want to know how to continue to raise the bar for diagnoses for mental health and substance-use disorder, and, of course, we do that really staying very grounded to the science," Marketa Wills, chief executive and medical director of the APA, based in Washington DC, told a press conference."
Mental illness affects one in four adults. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) lists symptoms for known conditions and guides clinicians toward diagnosis. Psychiatry faces difficulty linking subjective experiences to measurable brain and body changes. The DSM does not address causes of mental illness or the role of sociocultural and environmental factors. The American Psychiatric Association published a strategic roadmap describing future directions for the DSM and timing for a new edition remains unclear. Officials emphasize raising diagnostic standards, grounding revisions in science, achieving clinical pragmatism, inclusivity, and adaptability. The roadmap highlights dimensional approaches that treat conditions along shared-symptom scales rather than fixed categories.
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